Is behaviour out of control in a lot of schools?

[Sophie12319]

Not sure whether to move DD (10) to another school. Everyday she's coming home saying she can't learn as there are a group of boys who throw stuff about the classroom, shout out when the teacher is talking, walk about the classroom in lesson. She has said teacher has sent them to headteacher in the past but it carries on.

This is not a teacher bashing thread btw (in fact, I have the upmost respect for DD's teacher as I have seen the boys behaviour at the school gate and I don't know how she does a whole day), maybe more of a parent bashing of why some parents let their kids behave like this?

Anyway, back to the point of thread, I spoke to my sister about moving her to which she said there's no point as he DS' school is the same.
Feel a bit hopeless as I feel DD's education is being ruined! I've emailed the school before about their behaviour but I feel at a loss!

I teach in what is regarded as a nice middle class primary school and whilst I wouldn't say the behaviour is out of control, violent outbursts have massively increased in the past few years. This can be directed towards other children, and especially towards staff. We now have about a quarter of our staff trained in positive handling to help de-escalate and remove children safely if necessary.
We probably average around 1 violent outburst towards staff a day (last week we had a kick to the face, a couple of bites and a few punches). Now, when you spread that round the whole school, it is not that common in each class. However, when you realise that for every episode that has become violent, there will be many more where staff successfully calmed the child down before it became physical, you begin to see the constant threat that exists in many classes.
It is not helped by the attitude of many (including parents and outside agencies) of how the staffs actions contributed to heightening the children.
People also assume that as it is a primary school they are only little so can't do harm.
Last year I had significant bruising for 3 weeks after one attack and we have had staff need medical attention. We have also lost staff as the violence has been triggering for them.
The problem is there is nowhere for these children to go.

It's a combination of not valuing education and thinking that teenagers don't have control over their behaviour. I'm sure a lot of it is also down to excessive screen time.

It's only a tiny minority whose conditions or trauma are so severe they are actually incapable of behaving. If children and parents saw education as a route to a more enjoyable and rewarding life then behaviour would be better.

The behaviour in our schools in a so called nice area of the country is terrible….. it’s deteriorated hugely since my eldest started. I really worry for my youngest child.
Anyone that can afford private moves as soon as they can, which makes the situation worse as funding is decreased and the % of parents that care decreases. It seems to be the brighter ones leaving too. I’m looking for my youngest as there are at least 3 high needs children in his class - we hear about some of what goes on from the children. Kicks in faces, attacks, toys, chair etc thrown around. The ‘class TA’ spends most of the time 121 with these children as either the EHCPs are in progress or have been turned down (the parents have explained this
as they are feeling let down).

Most problems at the junior school are caused by a handful of children that often have an unmet Sen need including many behavioural issues. They are very physical and use disgusting language. They seem to be untouchable and the incredibly frustrating thing for my children is that they often win the awards/certificates, whereas the children witnessing this don’t. It’s a complete joke but the heads don’t see this as an issue. I imagine they have little to help them as they use a ‘restorative approach’ which seems an absolute waste of time to me. No sanctions, you just chat over what happened.
The parents don’t care either. They are the ones parking irresponsible/illegally and telling other parents to F off if anything is said.

Im looking at options for my eldest 2 and trying to work out if we can go privately at least for the youngest as they’re definitely getting a worse education vs 6 years ago at the same school.

The vast majority of kids in most schools are OK. There is however a significant number whose behaviour is an issue and these take up all staff time. They have a history of problems going back to early primary. They often have parents who are either aggressive and difficult or lead chaotic lives. They sometimes have adhd diagnosed as teens. Most senior management time is spent following them round the site trying to get them to go to lessons or trying to get them into internal isolation or trying to meet their ineffectual or confrontational parents or dealing with their fights or aggressive behaviour towards others. This means that they have less time to focus on improving the school in other ways.

When you do have a class that behaves well and let's you teach them it is bliss. All kids make better progress in quiet, calm environments.

There have always been naughty children.
Just now some parents are the problem. Some parents swear in front of children and the little ones carry that unacceptable communication skill into the schools. When I was young, there was a school for naughty children, then society decided we would not have such establishments. Bring back the residential schools for such children. Perhaps consider chastising and training the parents. Of course not all naughty children have ‘out of control parents’ surely that’s what Social Services are for. I’m incredibly worried about the parents who don’t realise or care their ‘little darling’ is a huge problem disrupting the entire class/playground.

I was asked (by my Head) to apologise to a child last week for giving them a detention for telling me to fuck off in a lesson, because his mum said he couldn't help it because he has ADHD. I refused and told my Head that ADHD does not make a child behave in a completely unpleasant way. She said that 'in the interest of both parties' I should apologise. Absolutely not. I know she needs me more than I need this job.

^

This whole interaction personifies the problem we have

Teachers apologizing to children when they are told to feck off!

i worked in a secondary school for a couple of years recently (am library staff) and oh my god the behaviour was horrendous.

wandering around, talking back, ignoring staff, destroying/hiding/stealing books, some really nasty racial bullying going on.

the other thing I felt was a real problem was that parents and other members of staff did not have your back. We would check every book that was returned for its condition, so if you took a book out and it came back trashed it was reasonable to ask if you had damaged it. The kids would kick off, parents would kick off, other staff would accuse you of being unreasonable. To the point where I saw a pupil destroy a book, sent an invoice to his parents and another member of staff emailed me to stop harassing them. I sent them an invoice for property their child had destroyed, I wasn’t harassing them at all!

It always felt like other members of staff would take a child’s side over yours, in a case of hearsay, which was not the case when I was a pupil at school. How can we effectively manage behaviour if there are no consequences for really quite poor behaviour?? I don’t blame the other members of staff for this by the way, but a pervasive culture of permissiveness that the SLT had instilled. I left for HE which has its problems but at least the students can usually manage basic courtesy and respect.

This! This is what I was getting at. It’s appalling. Any reasonable member of SLT should be backing you on this, you should be able to come to work and know that if someone swears at you there will be reasonable consequences. Not tell you that you were in the wrong!

I’m sorry you experienced this and I’m so glad you stood up for yourself. You, and all your teacher colleagues, do not deserve the shit that gets heaped on you!

Remove persistently disruptive children from the classroom. It is the only way to prevent the education of everyone else suffering!

It's not that uncommon, unfortunately. I used to have a Head who would back you 100%. You felt totally supported at work and even if you had got something wrong, or not handled a situation well, he would support you through it and help you make it right. He's retired now and my new Head is the opposite because she's scared of parents.

Iwas asked (by my Head) to apologise to a child last week for giving them a detention for telling me to fuck off in a lesson, because his mum said he couldn't help it because he has ADHD. I refused and told my Head that ADHD does not make a child behave in a completely unpleasant way.

My lad has ADHD, unofficially (3 yrs on waiting list for ASC assessment, not happy about lifelong impact of ADHD labels or drugs). It is having too much energy with limited executive control, causing fidgeting, low focus, and sometimes silly giddiness. It is not an excuse for arrogance and entitled male behaviours. He can be reined in, and if he spoke to a teacher like that in the class he would be! Stick to your guns.

Ok so this behaviour is my DS. He has ADHD. It’s not all day every day, and not all the behaviour - I’ve never been told he pokes anyone, throws anything except for in Y1 when he went under the table and tipped the chair over nor takes anyone’s stuff, but the getting up and wandering, shouting out, repeating - it’s consistently present. We work with the school and his teacher as much as we can. The next step is to try medication.

But I’m sure many would think he’s “just badly behaved”.

A lot of the behaviour is coming from males, let’s face it. I think the boomers had something when they complained about screen time. The internet is a major influence on behaviour, and the internet views women and girls everywhere as sex objects. I do not like the way schools themselves now push use of screens and the internet on even young kids. I had my kids back in a time when I could form the ambition that we would never have screens in the kids’ bedrooms. That choice has been removed from me by schools who tell me each week it seems that they’re selling my data off to yet another online provider.

Do you agree that he belongs somewhere other than mainstream schooling, should there be somewhere else available, in an ideal world etc? The disruption is not really fair on his classmates.

@Afishcalledwand he's not the most disruptive in his class by far.

He doesn’t qualify for an IDP (we are in Wales) because the school are meeting his needs through universal adjustments. He doesn’t do this sort of thing all day, maybe not even every day. But the type of behaviour - low level disruption as the PP it, he’s never violent - has been consistently there since he was in nursery. So, clearly it is not “chosen” behaviour.

He’s now in Y3, doing well so far and having had an excellent Y2 because his teacher would send him on errands, give the whole class movement breaks, wouldn’t tell him off if he wasn’t looking and was fiddling with something because she knew he was still listening. In Y1 the teacher was very strict, shouty and they never gelled.

What would you have in an ideal school; eyes front, statue still? A school of robots? I don’t think mainstream schooling is geared up for a large proportion of children, to be honest. Classes are too big and teachers have way too many children to handle alone.

The thing is what works for one child doesn't work for others. So while a whole class movement break makes your child happy when I was at school I would have hated that. Im autistic and my preference of school learning was the sitting in silence, eyes front doing work that you think is terrible. Obviously that doesn't work for all others. If I had someone next to me constantly fidgeting and getting up and talking I would never have learned anything and would most likely have started to internally panic and would have switched off totally.
So I'm not sure how schools can ever cater for everyone's different types of learning. They can't have 3+ classes. One for people who need to move. One for those who like silence. One for children in between. I'm not sure how this can ever be solved unfortunately that makes everyone happy. I my school the worst behaved children were in my geography class. They were constantly talking, shouting out, getting up. So the teacher spent 90% of the lesson calming them down. As a result I got D in geography. All my other subjects were As or Bs.

Female students are just as bad.

Yes, good point. The movement breaks in Y2 were actually put in place before, and the teacher had done it with previous years - a song would go on and everyone could get up and dance. I personally would’ve hated that as a child too as I was so shy and self conscious! But we were all told the DC loved it in my DS’ class, so I guess the teachers Do their best to accommodate the children they have that year. If several children had hated it, maybe she wouldn’t have done it.

I suppose all efforts can be made as well to group children who learn one way together, and those who don’t in a different way. My DS’ class is apparently a very noisy one. The school does actually have 3 classes a year so what you’ve suggested would be feasible, and maybe that’s why he is in the “noisy” class.

IME girls can be just as bad as boys, sometimes worse.

Most of the poor behaviours in my school are from children who have parents who either refuse to engage with school at all or just completely refuse to see (or admit) that their child's behaviour is a problem.

On the other hand, I have a child in my form with ADHD and ODD and his parents couldn't be more supportive to both school and their son. They believe that supporting teachers, providing his EHCP is adhered to, (as it should be) is supporting him too and I heartily agree. The last phonecall I had with his mum ended with her telling me that they both believe that although his issues make life more challenging for him, it is not an excuse for him to behave like a dickhead.

Remove persistently disruptive children from the classroom. It is the only way to prevent the education of everyone else suffering!

Last class today was English - DD2 was complaining about noise from one of the other classroom said one of her friends was in it and moaning on way home. The frequently disruptive kid was asked to leave - he refused - apparently took 3 teachers and evacuating rest of the class to get him moved out and they think deputy head just told him to behave better tomorrow.

Their Y10 big assessment that counts to GCSE coming up soon in that core subject and 30 kids lost an entire lesson. That friend of DD2 who was a well behaved doing okay student in primary has morphed into a not trying one and has been caught truanting - all I can do is desperately try and keep DD2 on track and fill in gaps.

Everyone getting up and dancing might be fun and it sounds great. What it actually means is that a whole class of kids have possibly been distracted from their work. It probably then takes more time to settle them again to be back in the right frame of mind for learning.

Fgs, you cannot have 1 or 2 children holding everyone else to effective ransom with their needs. That's ridiculous. The other 28 parents need to complain

Children’s home lives have worsened since lockdown and due to 13 years of austerity measures. More children than ever are being referred to social services, CAMHS, etc due to mental health issues in themselves and within their family unit. Cases of abuse at home seem to be rising. With that schools’ funding has been cut so less TA support, less intervention support, less behavioural support. It’s a melting pot of shit and the only way things will get better is with a massive drive to recruit and keep teachers and more money.

This is exactly what happens in our schools.
the teachers looked exhausted after
only a few weeks and everything (it seems) is geared to the 2-3 kids in each class that have additional needs - either behavioural difficulties, adhd or asd.
I have complained and was told that there is no where else for them to go and that the main objective is to keep the other children safe, learning comes second. It’s not fair but there are very few alternative provision places and if the parents want mainstream they tend to get it.

I despair…. When did the needs of a minority trump the needs of everyone else all in the name of ‘inclusion’?
dancing? Movement breaks? Missing whole lessons due to poor behaviour of 1 or 2? This is not right if it affects other children. One of mine would HATE the movement breaks, another would do it but how much learning time is being lost?

Sadly one of mine would really benefit from some extension work to push them a bit more… they’d love this, but when I asked about it I was fobbed off and it’s clear they are so caught up with the poor behaviour of a few there is no money, no time and no head space for teachers to do anything extra. Its all about fire fighting the issues. Schools are getting worse
and they have no way to improve.

That was meant to be in response to @bombastix